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I just returned from a minister's retreat. While we were there, we broke into small groups, and I met with a group of other ministers of small churches. This was an "appreciative inquiry" retreat, so we focused on what the positive things about being ministers of small churches are, and what skills and resources we bring to our larger group. We came up with a wonderful, appreciative list. I don't want to share it with you, because I'm not sure of the confidentiality rules around that, but I want to ask any readers out there to respond with the strengths, as they see them, of small churches. It's time to appreciate ourselves!

At the Heartland UU Minister's Association meeting, a few of us met in a small group to talk about being ministers in small churches. We developed a list of what strengths we bring to the larger group of UU ministers. This same list could also be a list of the strengths that small UU churches bring to the UUA. As my memory serves, these are some things we mentioned:

We know how to work collaboratively, because we've had to.We know about We have a proportionally huge impact in our communities, for those small UU churches in small towns.

Following the protests against Rev. Rick Warren delivering the invocation at Obama's inauguration, Bishop Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal bishop, was asked to give an invocation at a pre-inauguration event. Well, unfortunately, it had much less coverage. First of all, the event was on HBO, which not everyone has access to. But worse than that, the invocation was cut from HBO's coverage, so no one got to see it then. HBO, by way of apology, played it the next day during the pre-inauguration time, and I think it was played on the screens on the mall in DC. But for the rest of us, we pretty much had to go hunting to actually see it. So, in case you haven't, here is his very worthy invocation.

The Commission on Appraisal put forward a draft proposal for revision of the UU principles that I wrote about here and then here and here. Having heard all the feedback sent to them on this draft proposal, they've now issued their final proposal. A fine commentary on how the questions raised by the cultural misappropriation section are left unanswered is given by James Ford at Monkeymind here, and so I'll just say I agree with his analysis of this, and say that combined with the passage that states, "When we fall short of living up to this covenant, we will begin again in love, repair the relationship, and recommit to the promises we have made" under the C-23 "Principles" section, but which would seem to apply to the whole Article II "Covenant" section under which the sources fall as well, it seems to propose that there actually be a prescribed process for addressing "misuse of cultural and religious practices" that is troublesome given …

The Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Landrum is a Unitarian Universalist minister, artist, writer, parent, and justice advocate. The opinions expressed here are solely her own, and do not represent the views of the church or any other organization she serves.